Politicians Sweat Silly Stuff While Schoolkids Sweat Serious Stuff

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The political buzz swirls around Gov. Jeb Bush's campaign ads on television touting his public-education record. They were filmed -- gasp! -- at a private school.

Had Bush used a public school for the ad, the Democrats would have accused the governor of abusing the power of incumbency.

Don't you just love election years? It's always something.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Bob Poe now wants all public-service announcements featuring the governor or Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan zapped from the airwaves. Those ads, Poe told Bush in a fax sent last week, "should not be used as a stealth arm of your campaign and could be considered as an `in-kind' contribution to your campaign." Poe also wants the governor to send him all public records about the production of all PSAs featuring the Bush/Brogan duo.

Stay tuned for files of PSAs turning up in first lady Columba's luggage during an airport security check. She could blame an absent-minded terrorist. Why not? Hillary found those lost Whitewater papers at the White House residence just late enough to save the Clintons from any legal liability.

Ah, but that was then. This is now -- politics as usual.

Democratic leaders seem to be sweating the silly stuff. But it's our kids who are sweating the serious stuff. Broken air conditioners at public schools during the sweltering dog days of August. Classrooms so crowded that good teachers simply can't help every child who needs it. Lunch so early that by 1 p.m. the kids' tummies are growling and their brains are near dead. Trailers, trailers everywhere.

And what about summer school for the kids who still can't read well yet continue to be promoted to the next grade?

Sorry, no money for such luxuries. But who cares?

Back in 1997, a proposed sales-tax increase for Orange County schools, roads and other needs failed, in part, because too few parents and minorities voted. They didn't even have to go to the polls. They could have mailed in the ballots. Didn't happen.

African-American and Hispanic kids now make up a majority of students at Orange County schools. Will their parents make the time to vote for a half-penny increase in the sales tax this year?

Lawyer Kico Diaz, the son of educators, says he can't take another year of Hispanic parents going AWOL at the polls. "We have an opportunity to do some real education here," Diaz told the Orange County Superintendent's Hispanic Council recently.

Diaz hopes to rally Hispanic business and civic groups, as well as religious leaders, behind the tax proposal. "If the Hispanic community can play a significant role in [backing] this tax, not only will it improve infrastructure, we will show that we can organize behind a cause," he said. "And if that delivers votes, and those votes deliver dollars, now the politicians and everyone else will have to take it to a different level, and we have a real impact on what happens."

The lawyer, who as past president of the county's Hispanic Bar would visit classrooms to talk to students about the importance of education, now wants to educate the parents to do right by their children. He's not the only one targeting Hispanic parents.

Latino Leadership, a nonpartisan get-out-the-vote group, has produced public-service ads for radio that call for parents to get involved in their kids' schools. "It's a crisis," says Latino Leadership's Marytza Sanz, mother of two college-age daughters. The ads don't deal with voting or tax hikes. They focus on parents' responsibility to take their kids to the library, to read a book with them, to visit school and talk with their children's teachers. They ask parents to set aside nostalgia for Old San Juan or love of Cuba or wherever else and concentrate on the here and now and their children's future.

In Central Florida's service-dominated economy, thousands of parents work two jobs to make it. They feel powerless, tired and abused. Diaz is hoping to empower them politically in the short term to help their children succeed in the long run. Sanz is rallying parents to take charge today so their kids can prosper tomorrow.